In Europe, phone tapping not new

U.S. surveillance creates little stir

John Leicester, The Associated Press

Published
10:00 pm PDT, Tuesday, May 16, 2006

PARIS -- Europeans are no strangers to eavesdropping: East Germans endured the all-pervasive Stasi secret police, a French president had a penchant for wiretaps and Britain had "Camillagate" -- with Prince Charles taped making a steamy call to his lover.

Perhaps little wonder, then, that many Europeans barely shrug at news that the Bush administration has collected telephone records on millions of Americans.

Although experts and officials say Europe does not centrally collect telephone data on a massive scale, government surveillance has been increasing since the Sept. 11 attacks. Some say European nations could further boost surveillance if terrorism becomes an even bigger threat.

"If we had a Sept. 11 every year, then citizens, regardless of the country, would doubtless be ready to abdicate a good portion of their rights in this area," said French lawmaker Alain Marsaud, a former anti-terror investigator.

Marsaud, other experts and European Union officials said they were not aware of a European equivalent of the secret telephone database put together by the U.S. National Security Agency. The program was reported last week by USA Today, which said the NSA has records of all calls made by customers of AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth since shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. BellSouth denied the report.

"German legislation does not allow for this," said Andreas Middel of Germany's Deutsche Telekom, Europe's largest phone operator. While the company does -- with a court order -- turn over to law enforcement agencies data such as numbers called and the length of calls, it does not provide billing information for more general purposes, he said.

Jan Sjoberg of TeliaSonera, the Nordic region's largest telecommunications operator, said: "There is nothing today that indicates that this kind of thing is going on, either in Sweden or elsewhere in Europe."

The Bush administration has declined to specify how the data are being used; President Bush reiterated Tuesday the government was not eavesdropping on Americans.

The pendulum swung toward more extensive electronic surveillance in Europe after deadly commuter train bombings in Madrid and London.

EU governments and the EU parliament this year approved legislation requiring telecommunications companies to retain phone data and Internet logs for a minimum of six months for possible use in terrorism and serious crime investigations.